


Oh! You Pretty Things

by radiodurans



Series: Pink in the Night [1]
Category: Fashion Model RPF, Harry Styles (Musician)
Genre: Bad Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Gender Dysphoria, Genderqueer Character, Hallucinogens, Het Sex that Might be Lesbian Sex, Homophobia, Infidelity, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Harry Styles, Nonbinary Relationships, Oral Sex, Other, Song: She (Harry Styles), Songwriting, Transphobia, Vignette, maybe the real gender was the influencers we fucked along the way, tenderness as a verb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radiodurans/pseuds/radiodurans
Summary: “The problem is that I want it too much,” says Harry, trying to articulate something that has few words. He feels a fishhook dive into his throat, pulling out each word one by one, stabbing his insides all the way. His lungs and heart are going to hemorrhage and fill all of his inner cavities with blood and then he will die, right there, still not knowing what he is.orFine Line: Gender Trouble Collector's Edition
Relationships: Camille Rowe/Harry Styles, Harry Styles/Original Character(s), Mitch Rowland/Harry Styles, Sarah Jones/Mitch Rowland/Harry Styles
Series: Pink in the Night [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640836
Comments: 79
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wishforwishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishforwishes/gifts).



> Yeah so I guess I'm writing RPF for the first time at 27 years old. This means that if I get any Harry Styles Facts wrong I am terribly sorry - I did TRY to do RPF-related research but I have a day job or whatever and regrettably I can't use every hour I spend there reading Harry Styles related articles. Thanks to anyone who has written CHASM stuff from 2017 onward - I absolutely used you for a research springboard and I am very grateful for your work.
> 
> Please do not send Mx. Harry Styles this fic. If you like my writing so much that you simply must send a fan letter with some of it in there, I'll be happy to provide you with an original story that doesn't include Harry sad-banging a millennial instagram beefcake. Also: I make no claims about Harry Styles' actual sexuality or gender within this story. Think of it as a roman a clef with the real names still tacked on. 
> 
> I was going to post this as one whole piece but honestly I'm so nervous to be posting this that you guys are gonna get a WIP in several chapters and like it. I would like to have it done by next week but we'll see.
> 
> Title by David Bowie.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Always go a little further into the water than you feel you are capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting._ \- David Bowie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for more specific content warnings regarding homophobia

The damp grass is sticky under Harry’s palms that May afternoon. His pinky entwines with Mitch’s as they wait for their mushrooms to kick in. They’re sat on a hill that’s so fucking green that it could be a set piece in a _Sound of Music_ remake. Stretched far beyond them is the city of Los Angeles; Harry can hear all the lonely people going about their day if he is quiet enough. Mitch scrolls through Spotify on his phone, looking for something that vibes.

(Later, they’ll say they listened to everything on vinyl. It’s good for the image to hearken back to ’65.)

“Put on _Ram_ ,” says Harry. Mitch tugs on his pinky playfully.

“We listened to _Ram_ last time we tripped together,” he says.

“Right, because it’s a _classic_ ,” says Harry. “Ms. Rowland, may I remind you that we listened to all of _American Beauty_ today and I did not even complain once despite you _knowing_ how ambivalent I feel about the Dead.”

“If you listen to them enough they’ll grow on you,” says Mitch. Harry tilts his head to see what Mitch has paused on; Mitch angles his phone away playfully.

“I already said I was ambivalent. That’s as high as their stock is going to raise, my friend,” says Harry. Mitch laughs.

“You got me there. How about _Back to the Egg_ , then? Still Paul.”

Harry shakes his head. “Too late-seventies. _Hunky Dory_?”

Mitch grins at him. His teeth are unusually bright.

“Fantastic! We haven’t tripped to Bowie yet.”

“Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. . .” Harry mutters. He plunks the deep E2 string on the guitar on Mitch’s lap. The air vibrates around the sound. He watches the wispy sound waves fly off into the distance. “The shrooms are kicking in.”

Mitch blinks very quickly. He grips the grass with one hand as though he might float away. Harry rolls his neck; the floating feeling is overtaking him too. His head might roll clean off and be taken by the wind. Would his spine float behind him like a grotesque balloon string? His own laughter echoes in his ears.

“They’re kicking in for me too. Fuck,” says Mitch. He rolls his own neck; it threatens to quit his body too. Two heads, floating over Los Angeles, looking down at the odd city beneath them. Its residents probably wouldn’t even notice them. They’d blend into the background madness always threatening to overtake the city that was only held back by its residents’ utter apathy.

“Make sure your head doesn’t fall off,” says Harry. “They’re not tied down as well as you’d think.”

*

It’s been three weeks since Camille broke up with him, and Harry’s broken heart has started to be overridden by the demands of lust. He’s wanking at least twice a day, whenever he can, often not even to pictures of _Camille_. He finds himself stalking thirst trap Instagram photos via his personal account - #instagay #fitspo #gayinstagram #thirst #eggplant #ughughugh #andsoonandsoforth. Books could be written on the level of hubris inherent in Mx. Harry Styles sticking two fingers up his own arse with the thumb on his other hand dangerously close to the like button of some beefcake with an 8-pack and seven gay Instagram hashtags. Gemma _still_ teases him about liking a gay picture on Instagram in 2013 – some things never change.

When the inevitable happens (here, being, _Oh God, I’m never going to live down liking photographs of @gaygymrat1986 until the day I die_ ) he’s fortunate on two counts. One, that he un-likes the photo before any fan or the media can see and two, well - @gaygymrat1986 (aka Eric) is both single _and_ very flattered that _the_ Harry Styles got caught in his thirst traps. So, on the one-month anniversary of his breakup with Camille, Harry goes on a date.

(He doubts that a gym influencer is going to fuck him up properly enough to write a song about but – sometimes one has to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being fucked into a mattress.)

Eric is nice to look at in person– white teeth, tan skin, tight body. He carries himself with an overconfidence common in the influencer set, the sort of I-earned-my-place-at-the-table attitude formerly only found in the David Bowies of the world. Harry is adept at one-night-standing with influencers - they’re the only people who seem to understand the permanence and impact of a social media post, so they keep pretty quiet about the affair. He does his best to be charming and redirects most questions about his personal life away from himself with ease. Eric talks and talks and talks and talks about himself as Harry counts down to the hour when he can say – _Your place or mine?_

At 8:57, Eric takes the pressure of asking that question off of Harry’s shoulders in the worst way possible.

“So, what kind of junk do you have?” he asks, looking infuriatingly at some notification on his phone as he does so. Harry’s heart goes into his throat – _play it off as a joke._

“In my house? Well, I just moved, so it’s basics at the moment. One day I’ll get some Beatles memorabilia and then I’ll be a real California- UK transplant.”

Eric looks up, right into his eyes, which is actually worse than when he was preoccupied with his phone.

“Not that kind of junk. My little cousin who goes to your concerts says you wave around trans flags onstage. I’d really like to sleep with you, but not if you’ve gotten your dick cut off,” he says.

Harry should throw a drink in his face, make a scene, shout trans rights, do _anything_ other than what he actually does, which is laugh far too loud, order shots for the table, and decide to fuck Eric drunk.

An hour later, they stumble out of the restaurant and into a cab with their hands all over each other. He doesn’t care – _can’t_ care that the paparazzi might be trying to immortalize this terrible mistake. If he thinks too much about what they might think, then he might not want to do it, and he does want to do it – he wants to _want_ to do it, anyway. They go to Eric’s apartment – run-down, for how much it costs to live in this area. Up and up his rickety stairwell they kiss, drunk out of their minds, barely human.

“Can you turn on some music?” Harry manages to mumble when he sits on Eric’s bed to take off his shoes. “None of mine – it’s.” _Fuck_ he’s drunk. “I don’t like to fuck to my own voice.”

“Sure, whatever,” says Eric. “Alexa, play ‘sex playlist.’”

A Rihanna song Harry doesn’t know starts to play. Eric whips off his shirt and shoes like he’s been waiting an entire lifetime to get naked. He straddles Harry, who is fussing with about a dozen delicate buttons on his shirt. Stupid sober past Harry putting all of his faith in his future ability to open buttons.

Eric bats at his hand. “C’mon, dude, just be rougher with them. Let’s go.”

Harry glares at the man on top of him. He’s turned on by the smell of Eric’s cologne and the hot erection pressing against his thigh through his jeans – and yet he’s so fucking _angry_ that his poor dick, Mx. Harry Styles Jr., is threatening to not co-operate.

“I can’t just _rip the clothes._ I’m the face of _Gucci,”_ he says, immediately hating how the words taste in his mouth. They’re stuck up, and vain, and worst of all –

“Jesus, no need to be a faggot about it,” says Eric in a tone Harry can’t tell is an in-joke or an in-sult because he really knows nothing about Eric, and probably shouldn’t be doing this with someone he barely knows, all things considered. The utter hopelessness of getting his shirt off hits him in a tidal wave of complex, drunk melancholy. Negative-feelings-that-shall-not-be-named about taking his shirt off during sex are a pre-existing condition to sex in the first place, and yet here he is, fighting with some goddamn decorative buttons as his date _laughs at him_ for trying to do the thing he already doesn’t want to do. At a total loss and near tears, Harry takes another option. He turns over, yanks down his pants, and puts his ass in the air.

“The faggot you’re going to fuck,” says Harry in a clumsy attempt at being sexy. Eric huffs out a laugh.

“Damn straight.”

Harry presses his face into Eric’s pillow as Eric prepares his asshole. The pillow smells like gym sweat and has little pieces of lint stuck all over it.

“Hurry up and fuck me,” he demands. Eric grunts as he pushes in, then reaches down to press his palm against Harry’s stomach. Harry breathes a sigh of relief that Eric doesn’t touch his dick. Nobody has yet to give him a better handy than he has given himself, and the people who _have_ handled it seem to treat it in a certain – well – not necessarily _incorrect_ way. False, but not wrong.

Eric fucks and fucks and fucks, hard enough that Harry could get rugburn on his cheek from Eric’s disgusting pillow. His cock is throbbing and pressed up against his stomach. Maybe he’ll impress Eric with his ability to come untouched – that would be a thrill. If he can just cum _first –_

Too late. Eric comes with a great shudder and a howl that suggests he is an extremely rude neighbor. He pulls out, ties off the condom, and drops it on the floor like an animal. Harry reaches down to touch himself, willing himself to come hard and fast by his own hand. Mercifully, he does.

“That was so hot,” says Eric, handing him a towel for clean-up. He slumps against the pillows, sated and tired.

“It would’ve been hotter if you hadn’t called me a faggot,” says Harry before he can stop himself. He pulls his pants up, and messes around with his hair.

“Harry, I was just joking,” says Eric. His eyes are closed; he’s not sorry. “Is it any worse than what, you know, the tabloids say about you?”

“I don’t sleep with the tabloids!” says Harry, searching for his bag. It’s somewhere in this shitty room, detached from time and sanity and sobriety. Maybe neither he nor his bag exists and he’s actually in Hell, being punished for sodomy or loitering or something. Then, he spots the bag, and swings it over his shoulder so hard it slaps in him the hip. “I’m leaving.”

Eric hums in agreement.

“Make sure to lock the door.”

Tomorrow, Harry will take all of his clothes to the dry cleaner. He’ll tell the little old lady who runs it to do everything short of burning them so he’ll never have to think of how dirty he feels again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter uses the F-slur a few times, always portrayed negatively but very much there. Harry is making some...........interesting choices about who to sleep with.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Stupid Adam and Eve found their love in a tree. God didn't think they deserved it. He taught them hate, taught them pride, gave them a leaf, and made them hide. Let's push their stories aside._ \- MIKA, **The Origin of Love**

He and Mitch start snogging in the grass less than five minutes into their trip, which is about record time for letting their horniness overtake them. _God_ , he is so lucky that Sarah, that lovely girl, is gracious enough to share her boyfriend with him. Kissing Mitch in the bright summer grass is one of the things that's been making life worth living in these past several months. He really ought to get Sarah a fruit basket one of these days, or maybe a fitted Swarovski anklet that won't get in the way of her drumming.

( _Oh, you pretty things [you pretty things] / Don’t you know you’re driving your / Mamas and papas insane._ David Bowie is with them, hovering above their snogging, an ethereal bisexual ghost. This is a fact he knows, but cannot share. It might make Mitch feel shy, and Harry likes him open like this, wet from dew and half-hard against his leg.)

Harry runs his fingers through Mitch’s soft hair; Mitch shivers with pleasure. Melancholy strikes Harry when he remembers, yet again, how short it is nowadays. He missed his chance to snog Mitch when either of them had long hair. It's a shame; his fingers itched with desire to touch him in that way and then - poof! His chance passed him by. There must be something wrong with Harry, that he can't live in the here and now, that he yearns for flowing locks on all the men he fancies. Perhaps it's just the ache he feels over cutting off his own, his defiant entrance into ill-fitting manhood.

"Do you miss my hair?" asks Harry. The words exit his lips in a psychedelic swirl of blue and purple. The universe hums with anxiety. _Say yes._ Mitch should be able to hear his thoughts when the whole world has bottomed out beneath them.

"I like your hair any way you cut it," Mitch murmurs into his mouth. "Why?"

Harry strokes his fingers through Mitch's hair again. He's growing it out, though not so long this time. 

_At a certain point, it just gets weird, you know?_ he had said, and Harry had nodded, because he knew.

"I miss it so much," says Harry. A knot unravels inside him; he leans into Mitch's shoulder and cries so hard that snot comes out of his nose. This is the meaning of intimacy, the slug-trail of mucus he leaves behind. 

(Camille gave him this, too, freedom to give a dozen private admissions followed by coos in quiet French. But Camille is gone now because of him, and she's taken all of his secrets along with her.)

"There's no need for dramatics, H. You can grow it back," says Mitch, rubbing his back sympathetically.

"I can't," says Harry. The words taste metallic, as though he’s bitten through his tongue again. "I can't, I can't, I can't."

“You’re _Harry Styles_. You can do anything you want,” says Mitch. He kisses the top of Harry’s head, a tender gesture entirely dissonant with the situation. He doesn’t _understand_ \- but to make him understand, Harry would have to understand, and he has no fucking clue either. 

“The problem is that I want it too much,” says Harry, trying to articulate something that has few words. He feels a fishhook dive into his throat, pulling out each word one by one, stabbing his insides all the way. His lungs and heart are going to hemorrhage and fill all of his inner cavities with blood and then he will die, right there, still not knowing what he is. “I won’t want to go back.”

“So don’t go back,” says Mitch. Harry pushes his fingers under the hemline of Mitch’s shirt and strokes his happy trail. Mitch vibrates under his hands but presses on. “You’ve been all about transgressing gender norms, and all that, haven’t you? ‘Harry Styles: Genderfree Icon at the Met Gala.’”

“That’s performance, Mitch. It’s different,” says Harry. Mitch pushes his fingers under Harry’s shirt too. His skin lights up, but his chest gets tighter.

“You’re doing a lot of _performing_ just hanging around your house, then. Sarah’s not going to have a closet left if you keep pulling from it,” says Mitch. Harry can’t help but laugh.

“I give her new things!” says Harry.

“You take those too!” Mitch buries his face in Harry’s hair. He curves his hands to rest them on the small of Harry’s back. _He’s not going to touch my chest._ Harry melts into his palms; their skin is made of soft candle wax. If Mitch would hold him tight enough, they might become one flesh. _The Origin of Love._ Harry pushes a hand up further until his index finger is tracing paths in Mitch’s chest hair. He breathes a shuddering breath in, out. 

“ _The children of the moon was like a fork shoved on a spoon. They was part sun, part Earth, part daughter, part son. Oh, the origin of love._ ”

(It lines up neatly with _Eight Line Poem._ Bowie stamp of approval.)

“Oh,” says Mitch after a long pause filled only with first verse of _Life on Mars._

“Long hair spells trouble, Mitch,” says Harry. The fish hook is caught inside him again. “ _Gender_ trouble.”

Mitch puts his leg between Harry’s. He rolls his hips slowly, teasing.

“Sounds like a song,” he says.

*

It’s not that Harry dislikes his chest in _general_ – quite the opposite, in fact. Ever since he left _the band_ (lack of specificity his, always) he’s enjoyed preening about like Mick Jagger, shirt down to there, suit with tasteful cleavage, or even (and there’s the odd thrill he can’t identify – something to do with his _age_ , probably) wearing no shirt at all. _Rolling Stone_ has hired _the_ Ryan McGinley to photograph him, and he is absolutely _delighted_ that Harry’s willing to go for a photoshoot that’s half-shirtless. Ryan gives him a hug on the day of the shoot, as though they’re already bosom friends. He sizes Harry up and down with a grin; it’s immediately obvious that he knows _everything_ at a single glance- possibly things Harry doesn’t even know about himself.

“ _Rolling Stone_ offering up a queer artist on a plate. Feels like my birthday,” says Ryan as an introduction. It’s been a while since Harry’s gotten to work with a queer photographer, let alone an industry titan like McGinley; this might as well be his birthday too

“I could say the same to you,” says Harry. Ryan’s warmth invites candidness; it’s why his subjects love him. “ _The Kids Were Alright_ – incredible stuff. Groundbreaking.”

Ryan pats his shoulder jovially.

“You’ve done your homework! Thank you - I don’t get that every day.”

“You should. I still remember that I saw that photo of the boys kissing at the mirror in the Guardian when I was a teenager. It’s so beautiful,” says Harry.

Ryan grins while shaking his head. He leans down to pick up his camera, and fiddles with the lens absentmindedly.

“We’re in Rob Sheffield’s wet dream right now. The headlines – _Harry Styles admits to looking at pictures of kissing boys in grammar school._ ”

“Seems a bit long,” says Harry. Ryan looks through his camera at Harry experimentally. His finger isn’t resting on the shutter-release; Harry smiles for the “picture” anyway.

“True. But think of the _clicks,_ ” says Ryan. He lowers his camera, looking a little more solemn. “Sorry, I shouldn’t joke so much about that sort of thing. God knows you’ve gotten enough clicks in your – how old are you now?”

“Twenty-five.” The sympathetic look Ryan gives him reminds him that he should probably be hurt by all of this – the gossip, the clickbait, the intrusive paparazzi. But it always seems a bit _gauche_ to be a multi-millionaire who can be arsed about that sort of thing. As the face of Gucci, and as a performer notorious for valuing privacy, it’s his job to avoid caring about anything so trivial.

Still, he feels the knife twist a little bit when Ryan shakes his head and asked, “How old were you when GQ published that horrid article demanding to know if you were bisexual?”

Harry’s V-neck, which has made him chilly all day, suddenly offers a welcome cool down from how hot his skin becomes.

“I don’t remember what article you’re talking about. There’s been so many since then,” he lies. Ryan, the consummate professional and all-around nice guy, doesn’t press him any further

Ryan drives them out to an isolated location on a beach they don’t have to clear out for their photoshoot. He talks about the area with Harry as he drives, how they’ll have to shoot through the day to get the right lighting. There’s a cooler with peanut-butter sandwiches, fruit, and cold coffee in the backseat. He drives some sort of Range Rover that’s probably terrible for the environment, but as the road gets bumpier, he becomes grateful for the stability of four-wheel drive. Harry puts on the David Bowie Complete Collection on Spotify when the conversation slows, though he keeps the volume low in case Ryan wants to talk again. It’s not until he parks in the middle of nowhere that he says anything outside of small talk.

“I’ve been particularly bewitched by your blend of femininity and masculinity that you’ve embraced nowadays,” says Ryan. He says it quietly, as though he’s frightened to scare Harry away by bringing it up. Ryan’s queer instinct lines up with Harris Reed’s sensibility, both artists trying to bring out the best in Harry without intruding on whatever that might _mean_.

(Harry is far too busy for _meaning._ Fresh off a world tour, then back to the studio, then on to an album release. It’s enough to keep anyone from thinking about, _well_ – the things even his therapist doesn’t know. He’s been feeling much more _open_ with her in the picture, and certainly less anxious about sharing some of himself in his art, but there’s still a number of things on the, shall we say, need-to-not-know list.)

“Thanks. It’s nice that we’ve reached a point in society where it’s just okay to transgress gender a little,” says Harry. It’s a canned response tailor-made for the comfort of straight people, and Ryan gives him a side-eye that’s visible via his side mirror.

“I’d like to keep playing with that in the photoshoot. Your feminine energy especially – I think we could make something really special if you open up for me in that way. Will you?”

Harry sits quietly for a moment, absentmindedly rubbing his chest. This may be his last chance in a while to say –

“When you photograph me shirtless, I want you to take a few where baring my chest is framed as more. . .transgressive than, you know. . .how a shirtless man is usually seen.”

“Like a woman’s topless photoshoot,” says Ryan.

“Exactly. Showing the world that I, Harry Styles, have had sex now,” says Harry. Then, like a coward, he tumbles backward into a deeply unfortunate mistake. “We have to take masculine ones too, of course. For balance.”

Ryan is silent for a moment; he has been a photographer for too long to be ignorant of what that choice will mean. Harry looks out at the rocky shore, imagining what it might be like to flee the car and run straight into the ocean.

“You know that Rolling Stone will most likely run the shirtless photos that make you look like a hypermasculine wet dream, right?”

The water looks choppy, and the rocks are sharp. If Harry put stones in his pockets, he could easily drown, and never have another conversation like this ever again.

“I brought along several feminine outfits. They’ll have no choice but to run those pictures,” says Harry.

“But you _want_ the shirtless ones,” says Ryan.

“And we’ll _take_ the shirtless ones. Maybe _Rolling Stone_ won’t be the way you think,” says Harry. Ryan is quiet again, so Harry presses on. “Sometimes you want something, your soul aches for it, and the universe isn’t ready to give it to you yet. If the universe isn’t ready for these photos, then I’ll keep them in my sock drawer.”

Ryan clears his throat, and shuts off the car transmission. He fusses around in the back seat for his camera bag. With a click of his fob, the back door unlocks.

"Grab my tripod and your clothes. We're going to go make some art."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Kids Were Alright: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/feb/16/ryan-mcginley-the-kids-were-alright-in-pictures


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party and seduced you and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing._ \- Richard Siken, **Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a hot second, friends. 
> 
> Content warning for infidelity & more gender dysphoria.

Mitch strums his guitar gently. _Hunky Dory_ has long since ended, but they're tripping too hard for silence. Searching for a new album on Spotify in this state may as well be Calculus. So - Mitch plays.

"What's that melody? It seems - "

Harry is struck with deja vu so intense that he almost tips over. The world becomes convex; he is outside of himself. He is watching himself tilt his head, shirt rucked up around his hips, hair messy, lips strawberry-red. Mitch plays the same melody again, then adds a neat little guitar riff to the end. Under them, the earth rustles with pleasure like a rainstick.

“It’s about you. That’s why you feel it,” says Mitch.

“Oh,” Harry breathes. “What’s it called?”

Mitch leans further into the riff, tacking on a few more groovy bars.

“She.”

*

Most parties, in Harry’s experience, tend towards a two-hour expiration date that begins when the first of the cool people show up and ends when the first of the tired people leave. Harry’s gregarious nature has prevented him from leaving numerous parties that have aged like mayonnaise in summertime. One such party being tonight’s, which started out bad – the host (a friend of a friend) was already drunk when he arrived – and has only gotten worse as the evening has gone on. Harry’s only there in the first place because his girlfriend has a date with being beautiful somewhere halfway across the world and the only friend who was free to spend time with him had this party as the catch-22. _You don’t have to spend the night alone, but you will have to spend the night with a lot of people you don’t like for much longer than you’d like._ Wonderful.

At 11PM, when Harry is just about to call it quits, a sweet cocktail slides at him across the counter. Harry raises his eyebrows at the bartender, who points at an androgynous person across the room. The stranger flips their blonde hair, bites their bubblegum-pink lip, and hikes up their skirt a little bit to show off more of the back of their legs, waxed bare. Harry shivers with a strange longing divorced entirely from lust; he wants to know what dangerous things might happen if he touches this person’s hand.

The Stranger (aliases “Sam” and “Madam Genderfuck”) is the sibling of a C-list celebrity that Harry has never heard of, but who is very famous in Sweden. Somehow, they know almost nothing about One Direction - no songs (too bad) and zero tabloid nonsense (a godsend.) They've never heard Harry's self-titled album either, which makes him feel slightly put out, but then their fingers are playing with the lapels on Harry's flowery, form-fitting suit and he forgets to be sad about anything. When Sam takes him by the hand to the makeshift dance floor, Harry’s skin comes alive.

They end up slow dancing in the back of the bar as the garage band leans into a few mellower songs. Harry presses his nose to Sam's neck and smells Gucci’s gender-neutral fragrance. His heart flips as he holds them tighter; _at least_ three out of the seven deadly sins charge his embrace.

(The thing is – he _shouldn’t._ What he has now is good, is _great_ , is with a _fucking French supermodel_ who doesn't deserve to be cheated on with a genderqueer sibling of a C-lister.

 _But._ )

"What's your fragrance? Sam, it's absolutely bewitching," says Harry. Sam laughs quietly.

“Gucci,” says Sam with their Swedish lilt. “Mémoire d'une Odeur.”

“Would it be terribly vain of me to reveal that I had a hand in advertising your perfume?” asks Harry.

“Absolutely,” says Sam. Harry flushes as their hands crawl up his back to play with his hair. “But you’re so pretty that I’ll allow it.”

Harry kisses them then, enveloped in smoke and music and him and _them._ He wants to climb inside Sam’s mouth and steal that word - _pretty -_ and carry it home in his pocket to display on his mantle. _Plenty_ of teeny-bopper trades, tabloids, and teenagers have called him “pretty” - but they never meant it like Sam does. Not “pretty” as in squeaky-clean, object-of-affection, consumable teen dream. _Pretty_ as in “not handsome.” “Pretty” as in - _I see you._

“Wow,” says Sam, when they come up for air. The garage band is leaning into a jam now – _I love rock and roll! –_ and people are slurring the song alongside the front man, who is also obviously drunk. Harry’s head is spinning as though he’s just woken up from a coma. Sam’s eyes glitter with arousal; Harry moves his lips to their neck again as shame ties his innards into knots. Sam feels him tense and holds him more gently.

What Harry wants to know, the fucking million-dollar-question is - How the hell does one become so self-possessed about gender that they can take on some of the burden of whatever useless quarter-life crisis Harry’s going through because he makes so much money that he has no other problems besides – _well_!

Sam should put it down in a book, anyway.

Their hand moves to the small of Harry’s back and rubs it in unforgivably tender circles.

“I – sorry. I shouldn’t have,” Harry says into Sam’s soft hair. He can’t seem to pull away even though what he should do is run, run, run. His heart pounds in his throat, survival reflexes caught with vertigo on a tightrope between ‘won’t’ and ‘can’t.’ Something deeply un-masculine – no – _feminine_ – hides in this _freeze_ , spiraling him into a loop of anxiety reminiscent of the first time he painted his nails blue in the dead of night and failed at chipping or washing the paint away by morning.

( _What the hell did you do to your hands?_ Paul had said. The other boys didn’t look at him as he was escorted off to hair and makeup where the aestheticians properly wiped the paint away. Jen, his favorite, told him he should try a darker shade when he went back home.)

“Are you okay?” asks Sam. The hand that isn’t rubbing Harry’s back plays with a piece of Harry’s hair by his ear. Lust has been sucked out of their dynamic by Harry’s dramatics; Sam pities him as though he is a frightened child.

“I have a girlfriend,” says Harry, because he cannot bear to toss all his insecurities on someone vulnerable, no matter how self-possessed they seem. Cheating on his girlfriend is bad enough; using a _real_ gender variant person for free therapy while he’s at it would probably turn him into an actual worm.

Sam pulls away from Harry. They grimace and rub the back of their neck.

“Oh,” they say, in a way that makes Harry want to sink into the floor. Harry tightly grips his own wrist. Maybe if he squeezes hard enough the confusion and anxiety will leak out of his pores and he’ll finally be clean. Maybe he’ll press the switch that will make him stop feeling like his body is a shitty apartment with a predatory 80-year lease.

“I should probably go,” says Harry, _finally_ behaving like a man. “The paps are usually not bright enough to know when I’m fooling around with a guy but since you’re – ”

For the first time, Sam looks self-conscious. They take another step back.

“Not. Right,” they say.

“Sorry,” says Harry. It’s not enough.

Sam gives him a curt nod and says, “It’s ok.”

They sink back into the din of the party. Harry is alone. He sits down at the bar, gets one drink, and then another, and then another, and then another. A guy with more hair on his chest than God sits down next to him and orders him yet another drink.

Regrettably, they fuck in the men’s bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the lovely comments & junk. I hate social media even for self promotion so if you like it I would love you forever if you passed it thru the grapevine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You don’t want something because wanting it will lead to getting it. You want it because you want it. This is the zero-order disappointment that structures all desire and makes it possible._ \- Andrea Long Chu, **On Liking Women**

The sun is setting now in dazzling technicolor. He and Mitch keep getting distracted from writing to marvel at its beauty - or else to jot down the synesthetic nature of each color in the sky. Mitch runs his thumb around the rim of Harry’s open lips. He pulls his hand away and thoughtfully puts his thumb in his mouth.

“Your lips don’t taste like cupcake frosting,” he says as though it hadn’t been a verifiable fact before his experiment. Harry runs his tongue over where Mitch’s thumb had been moments before. All of his makeup has long since been kissed away; his lips taste like Mitch, and like nothing.

“I don’t think we ate cupcakes,” says Harry. Mitch shakes his head. He taps his pen on their notebook of dark scribblings and bites his lip.

“No - it’s just. They’re so _pink_. Like, birthday party pink. It doesn’t seem like they should exist, this pink, if we’re not celebrating anything. You know?”

Harry doesn’t, exactly, but Mitch’s voice is so soothing that he nods in agreement anyway. Mitch presses on, warm and reverent.

“I read that pink isn’t even a real color. People think it’s light red but it’s this whole other magnificent thing. When I was reading it, I was thinking of your pink suit,” he says. Mitch makes a dark scribble on the notebook - no words, just feeling. “I was thinking about you.”

A cool breeze rustles the page under Mitch’s hand. Harry’s cheeks are hot - and _pink_ , probably. He touches them with his - _pink -_ fingertips and feels a spark of kinship. _Let lips do what hands do._

“You think I’m not real?” Harry teases. Mitch laughs and flips to the next page - a clean slate. He writes She at the top, exactly as he’s done for the past. . .howevermany other pages. They’re going to write this song, if they can manage to hang on to it, and each other.

“No. I think you’re magnificent. You’re _pink._ ”

He writes “P I N K” right below She in the notebook.

"Janelle Monaé just put out a song called _Pynk_ , didn't she?" says Harry. He tries to ask with nonchalance, as though he hasn't watched Monaé dance in her pink pants dozens of times. Something about it is so familiar. _Pynk, like the inside of your -_

"We don't have to _mention_ pink. Just invoke the general essence of it," says Mitch, waving his hand with ambivalence. Harry nods his head thoughtfully.

"More fruit metaphors, then?" he says, choosing to stall a little longer. If Mitch can tell him what all of this means, even abstractly, then he might not have to figure himself out after all. But Mitch's look of annoyance tells Harry he isn't going to let him off so easily.

"Be serious, H," he says. The wind blows a piece of hair in Mitch’s eyes. Harry pushes it away from his face. Mitch tilts his head to rest his chin in Harry’s palm and briefly closes his eyes. His stubble scratches Harry’s hand. It grows thicker and coarser than Harry’s, a point of consternation on some days and relief on others. Harry sighs and pulls his hand away. The ghost of his hand remains.

"I feel. . .half-formed, honestly," Harry admits. "Like, I'm swimming through mud right now but when I get the things that matter - a partner, a family, a forever home - then I'll feel better."

Mitch scribbles down his thoughts. _Future. Kids. Partner. Incomplete._ The letters try to tug free of the page as he writes each one, corners squirming with frustration, but he holds them down.

"What if you don't feel better, though?" he asks when he's done wrestling with his notes. Harry taps his fingers in a patch of dirt. Mud cakes under his nails; visceral union with nature. _Tap, tap, tap._

"I don't know. That type of future seems so far away that I don't know how to think about what happens next," he says.

The sky swirls again. Brilliant white clouds float through - thought bubbles. Daydreams. Suddenly, a great cloud opens its maw. To Harry’s disappointment, the song it sings is nothing new. _When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, ‘What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?’ Here’s what she said to me. ‘Que sera, sera.’_

“Do you think I’ll be pretty in the future?” asks Harry, since the clouds are being remarkably unhelpful.

“Do you _want_ to be pretty in the future?” asks Mitch. Harry clenches the dirt with frustration. He’s going to choke on the non-answers the universe insists on shoving down his throat. Every time – _but what do you **want** _– as though there is no obstacle to forward movement beside voicing his desire. As though he’s not so full of contradictory impossible desire that sometimes he feels it would be easier to not have a body at all. _Pretty_ – like it’s not political-dangerous-frightening-exhilarating-repulsive to even define for himself what the word means.

He’s crying again. When he wipes away his tears, he gets dirt on his face. Mitch brushes away the dirt with _I’m sorry’_ s and _It’s okay_ ’s. He doesn’t deserve this; he’s a good person. When he pulls his hand away, he leaves a ghost behind too.

“God. Mitch, I want it so badly,” says Harry. Mitch picks up his pen – _DESIRE. BEAUTY._ They stick to the page without a struggle. There is no going back; his desire is inescapable.

“Tell me how badly, H,” Mitch murmurs. “Tell me what it’s like to want something like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm literally laugh-crying at my original claims of "finished by next week." Sure, Jan.
> 
> I know these chapters are usually organized with the flashback followed by a different scene and the reason I didn't do that this time was I wanted validation sooner. Also, this chapter was pretty candid and thus a little exhausting to write so I just needed to unleash it on the universe. If you are reading it, I hope it brought you some happiness and comfort.
> 
> Recommended reading on desire for NERDS: "On Liking Women" by Andrea Long Chu https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/essays/on-liking-women/


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Pynk” is essentially a song about withholding: all the pink things implied by the singer — not just her lover’s pussy, but her tongue, her brain, the quick under her nails — are partially or entirely hidden by flesh, keratin, or bone._ \- Andrea Long Chu, **The Pink**
> 
> _When he throws the wrench into the air it will catch the light as it spins toward you. Look—it looks like a star. You had expected something else, anything else, but the wrench never reaches you. It hangs in the air like that, spinning in the air like that. It’s beautiful. _\- Richard Siken, **You Are Jeff**__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is 90% pornography which is why it took me two days to write instead of two weeks. I just *clenches fist* really love writing porn.
> 
> Leave your vote in the comments about whether this is het, femslash, or some other third thing and I'll carry it into the bedroom with me to help lovers figure out how to navigate my body.
> 
> Just kidding my bed is perpetually cold. Enjoy reading!

He waits until they can see each other in person to tell Camille about what he’s not-so-fondly started to refer to as _The Incident_ in his mind. Here, his media training comes in handy (the thought of which makes him feel a little ill) - she seems to suspect nothing when they meet at his Tribeca apartment. Harry arrives before she does, scanning the street for her Uber. It’s eight-o-clock and probably too late for him to be drinking coffee but he’s tired from his flight, and from overthinking the conversation he knows they’re going to have. 

She's gorgeous, of course, when she exits the Uber and steps into the sidewalk. Blonde hair in a loose top knot and an airy long sleeve dress covered in ruffles. Her bright smile is so radiant and her movements so graceful that it makes the sedan she's leaving look like a limousine. _Fuck_ , he doesn't deserve her.

"Bonjour Harí," she says in her delightful lilt. Immediately, he runs to get her suitcase. When he gets back (after effusively thanking the driver, of course) he puts the suitcase down between them and kisses her hand.

"Bonjour, Madmoiselle," in the exaggerated bad accent that always makes her laugh. The sound of it, like a piccolo, haunts him before it's even gone. He kisses her right there, aversion to PDA be damned. He wants to remember this - the smell of her skin like that, and the curve of her lips like that, and the way she hums, contented like that. All of the things he's taking away from himself, and from her, too.

Because she _is_ going to break up with him. This circles around and around in his brain as they greet the doorman-go up the elevator-grab the keys-get inside-put down their bags. It flips his stomach when she grabs his collar and pulls him in for a deeper kiss, when she tells him he looks handsome ( _handsome, handsome, handsome_ ), when she dips her nose into his neck and inhales as though she’s trying to memorize every part of him before they have to leave each other again.

“Let’s order in,” she says, flicking his zipper to and fro. “I don’t want to spend a second away from you.”

Harry nods and fishes around in his pocket for his phone as his girlfriend lazily kisses his neck. She knows by now the way to navigate his body - how to murmur about its softness instead of its musculature, how to touch his chest, how to toy with him in their shared language of trust and femininity. He knows she doesn’t really _get it_ , but she tries, which is more than a lot of girls who have been into him before finding about his. . . _hangups_.

Somehow, he manages to order a pizza via an app. The text message the app sends him says they have around 45 minutes until it comes. Not enough time to talk, but plenty of time to fool around. He puts his knee between Camille's legs and urges her on to ride it. She squirms atop him, breathing growing heavier. After he undoes her dress from the back, she wiggles out of it and angles herself to the side of Harry's body with their legs still entwined, giving them both more room to breathe and more friction where it matters. 

Her fingers make quick work of the buttons on his shirt; she bites her lip as she frees each one. While she is preoccupied, Harry gently runs his fingers up and down the sides of her body and her back. The rough lace of her matching underwear and bra suggests new designer lingerie. 

"Did Old Vicki's send you something new?" he asks, pushing his fingers under the clasps of her bra. He fusses with the clasps for a moment before they come free. She rests her head on his stomach and sighs happily.

"Yes. But nothing in your size. _Desolé_."

Harry pulls the straps over her shoulders to help her out of the bra. On any other day he'd feel disappointed. Today his despair is already so deep that there's nowhere else for him to go.

"I don't need the lingerie every time."

She helps him out of his shirt, touching his shoulders as gently as he had touched hers. Then, she plays with his zipper again. His cock is hard now and tenting his jeans. She runs over it slowly with an open palm, allowing him to thrust up against her. Camille never _handles_ his cock so much as _acknowledges_ its presence. Sometimes they kiss for hours, him rocking against her, both clad only in underwear until they can't bear it any longer and push themselves over the edge with the right thrust against the other's leg. When kissing is sweet but the friction isn’t enough for Camille, she’ll put her hand down her own underwear and pant and pant and pant into Harry’s mouth as he urges her on to come with kisses and quiet words. But it’s been too long since the last time they’ve gotten off together to keep to sweet lingering kisses and self-pleasure. He’s too hungry to hold back.

“Let me eat you out,” he says, stroking her hair. Long strands have escaped her messy bun; he gently removes the bobble from her hair and puts it around his own wrist. 

“Oh, yes,” she sighs. Camille rolls away from him languidly and opens her legs with a coy smile. She tucks a thumb under her lace panties. Harry gets between her legs and gives her a big grin as he toys with her clit over her underwear. Camille giggles and gasps as he works her up. Finally, when she seems like she can’t bear teasing any longer, he pulls off her underwear and tosses it on the floor. Before tucking into her thighs, he stops to look at her whole body laid out before him. Her hair fans out on the pillow, knots here and there from their lovemaking that she’ll have to comb out later. Some of his own lip gloss lingers on her cheek and mouth. The lace of her new bra has turned the line just underneath her bust an irritated pink. It was probably bothering her all day, and she wore it anyway, for him. He can’t help but mouth gently along the spot where it hurts as his middle finger slides inside Camille. It’s the least he can do to make up for what is going to happen, later.

Camille's body gets looser and looser as he works her with one finger, then two. She's so wet already that Harry can tell it's not enough friction for her to get off. He thrusts into Camille a little harder, relishing the tight feel of her around his fingers. Harry could do this forever, watch her moan and sigh as he fucks her with his hand, not even bothering with his cock at all. Camille, however, does not have the same patience for hanging on the edge. She taps Harry with the heel of her foot and raises an eyebrow.

"What were you saying before about eating me out?"

“Right! Sorry,” he says.

“It’s okay, my love,” she says, tilting her head back and bending her knees. _My love -_ if it weren’t for Camille’s urging, he’d have to tilt his head away anyway so that she didn’t catch his eyes watering at those two words. _My love, my love, my love._

Camille sighs happily when his tongue meets her clit. She tastes like salt, and like skin, and like sex. The light dusting of hair that tickles his nose smells faintly of her favorite soap. He strokes his fingers in and out of her, scissoring, pressing the soft spots inside that make her squirm. His chin drips with her - with _them_ \- as he tongues her clit in ways that make her knees shake. Her thighs close around his head.

“Oh god. Oh god. Oh god,” she says. A litany. She tugs gently on his hair, close to the edge. He grinds against the bed; the friction is so delicious that his ministrations become sloppy. It doesn’t matter - she’s so close that an errant wind could push her over. Nevertheless, he pulls back from self pleasure. Until Camille gets off, his body is merely a vehicle for her pleasure. He eases in a third finger. Her legs seize as she breathes heavier. Harry rubs her stomach gently as he thrusts in and out.

“I’m going to - Harry!”

She tugs sharply on his hair as she cums with a soft cry. Harry licks her through it until her body goes slack and she pulls him on top of her. She wrinkles her nose and wipes her cum off his face with the palm of her hand. Then she kisses him, chaste at first before grabbing his chin and licking into his mouth. He ruts up against her leg, feeling ready to burst with the so-much and not-enough of it all.

“Trousers off!” she orders, curling her fingers into his belt loops. He hastily unbuttons the trousers and shimmies out of them. Camille bends her knee and allows him to rut against it again. He kisses her sloppily, hands entwined and resting atop her spread of knotted honey-colored hair. _God_ he loves her so much. The pink of her cuticles and cheeks and all of the parts underneath that he will never see. Her soft stomach, slightly convex, where his other hand rests.

“Camille, I -” he chokes out. She strokes his hair.

“Can I touch you for this?” Camille asks.

His heart pounds in his throat. The air is thick enough to choke on. He’s _so close_. Slowly, he pulls their entwined hands down, down, down - and then lets go.

After, the rituals of normal couples. She showers and then he does. The pizza comes to the door. They turn on a talk show and lean into one another as they eat. Her hair is wrapped in a towel; his towel is around his waist. She yawns and puts her head on his shoulder. He thinks – _we could get married._ He thinks - _we can survive this._ He thinks – _she should know._

So, he speaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Pink: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-34/politics/the-pink/
> 
> Andrea Long Chu is going to get an ulcer from the amount of times this fic cites her. Just the sympathetic vibrations of trans confusion are going to disturb her body on the spiritual plane.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has commented, liked, subscribed, and bookmarked. Please know if you have commented that I've sent a text message to my best friends about it. Also thank you to people who shared on twitter while I had one for five minutes. I remembered I hate the blue website so I did leave (yet again) but I appreciated your company while I was there.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me - soft and sweet. How the notes all bend and reach above the trees [. . .] How I would push my fingers through your mouth to make those muscles move that made your voice so smooth and sweet._ \- Neutral Milk Hotel, **In the Aeroplane over the Sea**

The small mushrooms in Sarah’s palm looked like a sinful stamen, Harry decides. He’s an hour into his first trip (alongside Mitch, who is _very_ experienced in the taking-mushrooms-industry) and he can’t stop thinking about her hand, opening and closing on a loop, a blooming flower of self-exploration and creative expression. She’s _nominally_ trip-sitting because she doesn’t really like hallucinogens much but isn’t _completely_ sober herself. Two beers out of a six pack are empty on the lawn and she’s working on a third. Maybe it’s been more than an hour after all.

Harry squints at her and opens his mouth. A ghost of himself leaves; he shuts it tight again. No question about the time on its own is important enough to drain his life force. He tries to rephrase the question in its mind into something that can tell him both the hour _and_ reveal deeper truth that is worth the tradeoff for a piece of his soul. Maybe it has a special connection with the vision of her hand folding and unfolding folding and unfolding folding and unfolding folding and unfolding. . .

“Sarah? Can you give me your hand?” he says. She holds it out to him, nodding. He turns it over in his palm; it’s scuffed green and brown from sitting in the grass. With his other hand, he pushes her fingers inward, then outward again. Sarah giggles.

`“Oh my god, you are really tripping, huh?”

Harry hums in acknowledgement. Mitch, who has taken endless delight thus far in seeing Harry's reaction to shrooms, leans over his shoulder to watch him bloom and wilt Sarah's hand again and again.

“Your hand looks like a flower like that, Sarah,” he says. Mitch’s hand rests platonically on Harry’s thigh; it’s only the drugs that cause his heart to go patpatpatpatpat at the kiss of calloused thumb to bare knee. Still, he can’t help but lean his bare back a half-inch into Mitch’s warm, hairy chest. Mitch rests his chin on Harry’s shoulder.

“Is that what’s got you so fascinated, Harry?” says Sarah. She wiggles her fingers, breaking the illusion of petals moving in unison.

“Well, not when you move them like _that_. Petals move together,” he says. Sarah hums in understanding, slowly closes her hand, then opens it as far as her fingers can go without turning her hand concave.

“Like that?” she says. Harry looks in Sarah’s eyes, struck for the millionth time with her brilliance and intuition. They’re crinkled at the corners, full of such delight and tenderness that Harry almost pulls away. She doesn’t know he’s in love with her boyfriend; she shouldn’t love him so much.

“Sarah, you’re the smartest woman I’ve ever met,” he says. Sarah laughs and tucks an errant strand of hair behind his ear.

“Thanks, but I hope you know I can never believe you. You use superlatives too much,” she says.

Around them, the sky expands. Night is falling; there are stars, but they aren’t real. Nothing celestial survives Los Angeles light pollution. Perhaps that’s why hallucinogens are so popular here. Otherwise, nobody can see the stars.

Sarah finally pulls away and grabs for her phone. Harry’s heart aches at the absence of her hand in his own. He thought she might bloom in his palm forever.

“Who are you texting?” he asks, in a tone more reminiscent of _Why aren’t you paying attention to me_ than polite curiosity.

“Calm down. I’m just picking out some music,” she says. Mitch rubs a comforting circle on Harry’s thigh with his thumb. His breath is hot on Harry’s neck. It would be so easy for his lips to press against Harry’s pulse, for Harry to reach behind Mitch’s head and press him closer as though posing for the cover of a vintage bodice ripper. Harry’s dress would barely cover his nipples and his skirt would be pushed up over his knees. He can feel it swishing against his legs now as surely as he can feel the wind blow Mitch’s chest hair against his back. They’re there and here and here and there, man to man, man to woman. . .

Sarah’s phone lets out an ethereal wail that startles Harry out of his second self. Mitch rubs his arm in a soothing way.

“Maybe a little loud, Sarah,” he says.

She presses the button on her phone a few notches; fewer notes fly out into the abyss. In his hallucinogenic haze, Harry doesn’t recognize the song (or why Sarah would play it so loudly) for a moment. Then, an unmistakable voice yells, _“TOO MANY PEOPLE GOING UNDERGROUND! TOO MANY REACHING FOR A PIECE OF CAKE!”_

“Ram!” exclaims Harry. He wobbles to his feet, ungainly after sitting for so long. The music swirls high into the sky, spreading Paul’s message across the world. _Too many people pulled and pushed around! Too many waiting for that lucky break!_ He gestures to Mitch and Sarah to rise with him. They each grab a hand, laughing as they stumble to their feet.

_Too many people sharing party lines! Too many people never sleeping late!_

They’re dancing arm in arm under the swirling music. Do-si-do, shimmy shimmy shimmy, vogue, and a hundred other moves private to their own little world under the moon. Harry is the boy and the girl and the girl and the boy in Mitch and Sarah’s arms, alongside them, between them. He has never been so much himself. Not even when he was born, or learned how to speak, or learned how to write his name. The boy-girl under the hallucinogenic stars is who he was meant to be.

He tastes blood.

“Oh my god,” says Sarah in a panicked voice. Something has ended the fun. His butt is in the grass and a towel is in his mouth. He tries to protest, but it is choked out by the grass-flavored cotton. Mitch bursts out into hysterical sounding giggles.

“Oh God, Harry, did we wreck your mouth? Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, did we help wreck the mouth of one of the most famous singers on earth? Oh my God.”

He glows yellow with anxiety. Harry touches a hand to his knee and shakes his head no. Even in his intoxicated state, he can tell the wound isn’t career ending. Sarah exhales blue. She leans back on her elbows and throws her head up to the sky.

“Look at us,” she says to Mitch. “This is why we can’t have kids. Can’t even trip-sit Harry properly.”

Finally _up to here_ with the mouth towel and _unamused_ by the infantilization, Harry spits the towel into his lap. It plops onto the ground in a bloody pile that seems almost sentient enough to squirm away and hide in the bushes with its creepy brethren.

“I could have got through this trip by myself,” he says. The blood still leaking from his tongue isn’t _that_ much of a counter to his argument, he thinks. A drop of blood, and then another, and then another drips onto his vintage Rolling Stones tee-shirt. “Oh fuck. This is one-of-a-kind. That stain is never going to get out.”

Mitch toys fondly with a hole in the sleeve as Harry wipes blood of his lips with the back of his hand.

“Can’t believe I live a life where my friend getting blood on a vintage shirt would probably make it cost even more on resale. You know I used to buy band shirts like that for five dollars?”

“Sounds like a hell of a life,” says Harry. He sucks on his tongue, swallowing some of the blood. It seems to be slowing – thank _God._

“We all had a hell of a life before we met you,” says Sarah. She grabs another beer, opens it, and takes a sip. Sarah wrinkles her nose as she sets it down in the grass. “God. It’s lukewarm now.”

The ghost of a past question haunts him. Time passing. The moon is angled differently in the sky. Beer grows warm. Hands fold and unfold. Music plays on.

_Do you love me like you know you ought to do? Well, well, well, well, well. Or is this the only thing you want me for?_

“We’ve been out here a long time?” says Harry.

“Three hours. Probably feels a little different for you, yeah?” says Sarah.

Harry looks up at the swirling sky. There is a bulge in it, like a bud pushing out of the dirt. Sarah’s hand, or a sunflower.

“Much longer. Long enough to –”

_Long haired lady! Long haired lady!_

The sky cracks. Something green peeks out.

“To be reborn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You remember on 8tracks in 2015 when In the Aeroplane over the Sea was on like every mildly angsty ship playlist? RIP babey.
> 
> Anyway, Harry Styles says himbo rights and I am inclined to agree. Himbos can have a little threesome, as a treat.
> 
> Oh, and just to endear myself to any potential readers who have made it this far - yes, I did dance around to Ram wearing bluetooth earbuds in my tiny New York apartment while I was writing this chapter. This was lost on my roommate, who was not in the living room while I was microwaving the food that fueled my artistic vision, and told me I looked like I was in The Shining when I was trying to finish this chapter. Straight people have no respect for queer art and are all #cancelled.
> 
> NEXT UP: Conclusion!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was hard, but you were brave. You are splendid. And we will never be alone in this world. No matter what they say - we’re gonna be ok._ – The Mountain Goats, **San Bernardino**
> 
>  _I wish we were forever lying on the Santa Monica beach [. . .] loving who I am 'cause of what we are._ \- The Front Bottoms, **Santa Monica**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thank yous and general chatter in the end notes. I hope you enjoy the conclusion of this story.

It feels only right for Mitch to hear the final cut of the song first. He and Sarah have been sleeping over at Harry’s house more often nowadays, which doesn’t _have to_ mean anything, but it does. Mitch always wakes up at nine sharp – an _impeccable_ internal clock – so Harry wakes up at eight and starts downing espresso like his life depends on it. This doesn’t calm his nerves at all ( _quite_ the opposite) but it does make him very _awake_ which is a thing he struggles with at eight in the morning. Despite media claims to the otherwise (as well as innumerable comments on every social media account he can think of) he is, unfortunately, human.

Mitch’s hair is stuck up in the back when he comes into the kitchen. He’s wearing one of Harry’s silk bathrobes, a bright red “I <3 Baroque” robe that Versace tried to use to win him over to the brand, and Harry’s heart melts at the subtle intimacy of it all. His _boyfriend_ is walking around _his kitchen_ as though he belongs there, and for the million-and-first time since they met, he feels like he could never love Mitch as much as he does just then.

“Oh, hey. You’re up early,” says Mitch, yawning. Harry slides him a glass of iced coffee across the marble countertop.

“I have something I want to show you,” he says. Mitch raises an eyebrow as he sips the coffee. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. Harry could watch it forever, the stretch of stubbly skin as Mitch drinks, speaks, sings. How he swallows when he’s on top of Harry and _so close –_

 _God_ , love is making him so fucking stupid. He’s going to have to move one of his brain-boost green juice shots to before he sees Mitch in the morning or his forebrain is going to start eating itself and he won’t be able to sing, or play guitar, or do anything at all.

“Is another track finished?” says Mitch. Harry nods.

“Kid emailed me last night after you went to bed. I haven’t listened to it yet, though. I thought we should listen to it together.” he says, trying to sound casual. With hands that aren’t shaking – well, aren’t shaking _that much_ – he takes another sip of his coffee. A look of recognition alights Mitch’s face.

“Oh,” he says reverently. “It’s _She?_ ”

“It’s _She_ ,” says Harry. Mitch chugs the rest of his coffee with such impressive gusto that it’s surprising he doesn’t choke. He cracks his neck, puts his cup in the sink, and entwines his fingers with Harry’s.

“Let’s go listen to it, then,” he says.

The stretch from his kitchen to his room is impossibly long. So too is the amount of time it takes to boot up his damn computer, and then to find the email, and then to download the file, and then to set up their headphones, and then to settle side-by-side on the bed, and then, and then, and then.

Then, they’ve listened to the song. Mitch squeezes his hand tight; Harry rests his head on Mitch’s shoulder. The song is wonderful; the song is _terrible_. His heart is full of the thousand somethings that have been fluttering inside it ever since the song’s inception – ever since he was _born_ , maybe. He leaves his headphones on for minutes after the song ends. If he can hear, he’ll have to speak, and he only understands a fraction of what needs to be said.

Eventually, Mitch slides both of their headphones onto their necks. Rather than saying anything, he kisses Harry’s forehead and rubs his back. Harry _isn’t_ going to cry – not this time.

“It’s really good, H,” he says. Harry lets out a long exhale.

“You’re right, but I think I hate it,” he says. Mitch laughs.

“You’ve said that about every track we’ve ever made, you know that?” he says. Harry takes his head off Mitch’s shoulder and rubs a hand over his face.

“I mean it this time,” he says. Mitch crosses his ankle with Harry’s when Harry makes a small move to scoot away.

“What do you hate about it?”

Harry looks at the ceiling, putting his thoughts together. After all this time, Harry has _some_ answers, but what he wouldn’t give to have them _all._ For himself, for Mitch, for his family, for his audience. _Hello! My name is Harry Styles, and I am –_

“I feel very exposed by this track. Like, when people listen to it, they’re going to be looking at me in my pants,” says Harry.

“Well, I don’t think that’s entirely true,” says Mitch. “Isn’t the poster inside going to be a picture of you in your birthday suit?”

Harry can’t help but laugh. Unfortunately, it turns into a wail so tragic it could be in a trashy Romantic novel.

“Oh, God, you’re right. Everything about this album is a mistake,” he says. Mitch sighs.

“No, it’s not. You _know_ it’s not. C’mere.”

He takes Harry’s headphones off his neck and beckons him to rest his head in his lap. After a moment of hesitation, he lies down. Mitch cards his fingers through Harry’s hair.

“Focus on the _song_ ,” he says. Harry closes his eyes, centering himself on Mitch’s hands.

“It feels like my underwear, because I think the song is honest. . .but not,” he says. Mitch hums, an indication for Harry to continue. Harry takes a deep breath in, out. “You know, an honest song like Cherry is very straightforward, but this one is so. . .abstract.”

“To be fair, we _did_ come up with most of the lyrics while on shrooms,” says Mitch. Harry nods thoughtfully. They’re about to enter into dicey territory – but if anyone deserves to know, it’s Mitch.

“I think I hate it because I can think of a lot of other ways the song could go, and they’re all partly true. The abstraction in the song was right _on that day_ – but another day it could have been. . .I dunno. . . _He_ or _They_.”

Mitch hums again in understanding. Harry opens his eyes and presses on.

“You remember that night of my first trip? Where it was you and me and Sarah? And we all danced, and I bit through my tongue, and everything?”

Mitch rubs his ear fondly. “I would never forget something like that.”

Harry reaches for Mitch’s hand and squeezes it tight. He rests their entwined hands over his racing heart. _Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk._

“I felt something when I was dancing with both of you that I haven’t felt another time. Something. . .complete. Like, I wasn’t yearning, I just. . . _was_.

Mitch brushes something from under his eye. Harry’s breath catches in his throat; he’s made Mitch _cry_. A part of him considers ending the conversation right there and apologizing over and over and over – but something tells him this would only make things worse.

“I don’t hate _She_ ,” Harry admits. “You’re so good on it – fingers of a God, you’ve got. I just. . .don’t think it’s all I have to say on the matter. I think I could write a thousand songs on that feeling, and a thousand more on the way we danced, and it might not be enough.”

Mitch sniffles and clears his throat. He breathes in, out, as heavily as Harry did before he vivisected his soul in Mitch’s lap.

“Well, there’s a thousand and one love songs, and people still seem to have more to say. Why not a thousand and one about –”

 _Gender_ he wants to say. Instead, he rubs the thumb of his free hand over Harry’s bottom lip. Harry shivers with anticipation.

“Pink,” says Mitch. Harry squeezes Mitch’s hand tight, giddy at how he understands, at this beautiful thing and a thousand more that they’re going to share with the world. Slowly, he opens his mouth, inviting Mitch’s thumb inside.

On repeat when he’s on his knees, it plays –

_She!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have a hell of a lot of thank yous and notes as stated previously and here I will list them all until I stop hyperventilating. I'm half-convinced this conclusion is TERRIBLE because it just sort of bled out of me like an open wound but then again I've been writing this story for A MONTH OF MY LIFE so maybe that's to be expected.
> 
> (You know, when I pitched this story to a friend, I was like, this had better not be longer than 4000 words. I'm boo boo the fool, truly.)
> 
> Thank you so very much to my light, my eternal reader, my muse, ao3 user shipwrecks. You wisely ditched this fandom almost a decade ago and you still allowed me to drag you kicking and screaming back into boy band hell. I am eternally grateful for your thoughts and for your gender guidance, and for your encouragement, and just for all of it.
> 
> Thank you to my best friend for putting up with all of my pictures of Harry Styles in your messages. You will never see this but I love you anyway.
> 
> Thank you to all of my readers and subscribers and kudosers and commenters. I was so fucking scared to post this, each and every chapter, and the lovely feedback was what kept me going every time.
> 
> Thank you to all CHASM writers and obsessives for helping me understand the solo Harry cinematic universe. Particular thanks to wishforwishes, whose knowledge for band lore is fucking immaculate. This story would not exist without you.
> 
> Albums that guided me through this story (aka unsolicited listening recs)
> 
> Hunky Dory - David Bowie  
> Going Grey - The Front Bottoms  
> Back on Top - The Front Bottoms  
> Origin of Love - MIKA  
> Heretic Pride - The Mountain Goats  
> The Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel  
> American Candy - The Maine  
> Queen of Denmark - John Grant  
> and, of course  
> Fine Line - Harry Styles

**Author's Note:**

> no social media we email each other like men: influenzaehaemophilus@gmail.com


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